Katy Butler

Contributed by Katy Butler

21 Results

An illustration of a hand holding a cable connected to an EKG diagram

Magazine Article

March 7, 2019

Dying Well

Humanizing Our Overmedicalized System

Hospital protocols have replaced the time-honored customs that once enabled the dying to be lead actors in their life’s final drama. Why do we spend so much on last ditch medical treatments while depriving so many of what they need to die with dignity and peace? Read More

Magazine Article

January 1, 2017

Turns in the Road

Highlights from the Networker Journey

Katy Butler, Dusty Miller, Esther Perel, Frank Pittman, Fred Wistow, Gary Greenberg, Laura Markowitz, Mary Sykes Wylie, Molly Layton, Rich Simon, and Ron Taffel

Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of articles that have appeared in the Networker over the past four decades, we’ve chosen a small sampling that captures the magazine’s most journalistic side, conveying not so much the eternal verities of our profession, but the sense of reading a first draft of the field’s history. Among other things, you’ll find therapeutic methods that, as exciting as they seemed at the moment, didn’t stand the test of time as well as initial forays into discussing complex issues we’re still struggling with today. We’ve also added in a few examples of writing so immediate and compelling that they have an air of timelessness. Prepare yourself for an interesting journey. Read More

Magazine Article

March 1, 2012

A Brief History of Psychotherapy

A Mosaic of the Psychotherapy Networker, 1982-2012

Garry Cooper Katy Butler Mary Sykes Wylie

Over the years, our front-of-the-book department has not only given readers plenty of tasty factoids to chew on, but also revealed how the seasons of the profession turn, and turn again, over time. Read More

Magazine Article

June 1, 2011

Unhappy Endings

Death as Technology’s Slave

Katy Butler

A perverse set of financial incentives within the medical system too often leads to the promotion of maximum treatment, no matter what. When this happens, patients and families may no longer be the beneficiaries of the war on sudden death, becoming its victims. Read More

Magazine Article

September 1, 2007

Refeathering the Nest

From Dutiful Daughter to Self-Aware Caregiver

Katy Butler

When families become stressed by a member's long-term care needs, it's easy to continue the usual relationship patterns and perpetuate long-standing resentments. But sometimes it's possible to learn new ways of being and interacting. Read More

Magazine Article

September 1, 2007

Caring for the Caregiver

6 Tips

Katy Butler

Those who care for ailing family members often are undertaking a marathon, not a sprint. Read More

Online Story

September 1, 2006

The Art and Science of Love

Can the Gottmans Bring Empirical Rigor to the Intuitive World of Couples Therapy?

Katy Butler

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, in a specially outfitted studio apartment in Seattle that reporters nicknamed the "love lab," mathematician-turned-psychologist John Gottman videotaped ordinary couples in their most ordinary moments. Sometimes Gottman asked them to discuss an area of conflict while monitors strapped to their chests recorded their heart rates. Sometimes he sat them on spring-loaded platforms to record how much they fidgeted. He looked at how they brought up painful subjects, how they responded to each other's bids for attention, how they fought and joked, and how they expressed emotion. Read More

Magazine Article

September 1, 2006

The Art and Science of Love

Can the Gottmans Bring Empirical Rigor to the Intuitive World of Couples Therapy?

Katy Butler

After studying 3,000 couples in the past three decades, researcher John Gottman and his wife Julie are combining his research and her clinical savvy in a science-based therapy. Can a nuts-and-bolts approach focused on fiddling with tiny daily interactions bring couples therapy scientific respectability? Read More

Magazine Article

September 1, 2006

Small Things Often

The Gottman Method in a Nutshell

Katy Butler

A Gottman Method therapist coaches couples to build marital friendships, rather than trying to engineer dramatic breakthroughs. Read More

Magazine Article

January 1, 2006

Being There

The Dalai Lama Gets Buddhism and Neuroscience to Go Face to Face

Katy Butler

In Washington, D.C., this fall, the Dalai Lama brought together a distinguished group of contemplatives and world-class scientists to explore the links between stress, health, and meditation. The result was a sometimes laborious, sometimes luminous conversation that suggested that spirituality and science may not be so irreconcilable after all. Read More

Katy Butler, a former features editor and staff writer for Psychotherapy Networker, is the author of two award-winning books about aging and living meaningfully in life's final quarter, especially in relation to modern medicine. Knocking on Heaven's Door (2013) was a New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year. The Art of Dying Well (2019) is a road map —practical, medical, and spiritual —through the significant passages of life after 55. Katy's groundbreaking work for the Networker was nominated for one National Magazine Award and contributed to several other NMA awards and nominations. Her writing has also appeared in the The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Tricycle: the Buddhist Quarterly, Scientific American, Best American Essays, and Best American Science Writing. Other honors include first-place awards from the National Association of Science Writers and the Association of Health Care Journalists; a "Best First Book" award; and a finalist nomination for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She lives in northern California and loves to dance in the kitchen to Alexa with her husband Brian.